August 25, 2012

... Obama is on the defensive and knows the only way he can win re-election is by the narrowest of margins, by ‘slicing and dicing’ – his own pejorative term – and eking out a 51 to 49 per cent victory, crawling across the line to 270 electoral college votes.

Let me ask you this, any of you paying attention to Obama at these campaign appearances: Have you heard him say what he wants to do the next four years?... Have you heard anything that would qualify as a second-term agenda?...

[H]is entire campaign consists of trying to scare everybody in his pathetic base of voters about what a bad guy Romney is. That's all he's got. His agenda is to try to get people to hate Mitt Romney....

There is nothing comparable in this year's campaign to what Obama was getting away with in 2008. That was lofty....

He's implicitly saying that we should stay the course, but I can see why he's not leaning on that message. He can't do the old hope-and-change message, because he's the status quo. Getting us excited about hope and change could only push us toward Romney (and Ryan).

282 comments:

The goal, according to the "Obama's Last Stand" (e-book, $2.99, via Amazon Kindle) is to defeat Romney in each and every state.

The Chicago HQ operation is so detailed and un-merciful towards GOP, that you will all start crying. You can see a glimpse of it in Chapter 4 of the new book, The Candidate, by Sam Popkin in how Obama defeated Clinton.

Romney is finished. Chicago HQ has him in the cross-fire. They have a dashboard (like the movie, Dr. Strangelove) where Romney/GOP every move is displayed with all possible actions to destroy him.

GOP: Go home. It is over. If not the hurricane will get you, The Forward Campaign of Obama-Biden, directed by David P., David A., and Jim M., will get you. Of course, you know, no one in the Main Stream Media (NYT, NPR, PBS, WashPost, DailyBeast, HuffPost, etc.) want you to win even one state.

I often try to get people look at this as a hiring decision, because in fact, it is, although for a very unique job. There is no way that strictly on the facts of qualifications, resume, and current presentation that anyone can honestly say they would choose Obama. Imagine the chances of success for an organization that would hire people like that. The organization in question is the most important one in the world, ever, and you get to make that decision. Awesome.

From the article: "What a difference four years makes. Obama is campaigning ferociously for a second term – and he is a candidate who would have probably have been disdained by the Obama of 2008."

------------Well, millions of us thought the 08 Obama was all gobbledegook, brandmaking at its worst and also thought any guy (not gal because they are all fucking sexist) with a donkey label would win in 2008 and the donkey won. But it is a good strategy to rub it in like this now.

What I see driving the election is (1) the economy and (2) fierce hatred and a desire for revenge against the scoundrels who carried out the 2008 banking scam and subsequent government payoffs to the bankers. Biggest financial scam in history. People are justifiably pissed off.

Somehow, a lot of folks I talk with have linked up Romney with that scam. They see him as the face of the Wall Street Banksters.

I think they're wrong. And I tell them that Goldman Sachs has a pretty heavy presence in the Obama admin.

But, they don't buy it.

So, the hate campaign against Romney is effective. Obama supporters see Romney as the face of the Wall Street bankster ripoff.

What else can Obama really do? He hasn't got a record he can run on. His party no longer controlls Congress and so any lofty plans are DOA. His only hope is that we tend to give our presidents a second term most of the time.

If Obama had good judgement, he would have seen all of this a year ago and not run for re-election. He could have gotten rich on speaking gigs and golfed 100 times per year. Plus, he would be a power broker who could have come out of retirement to run again someday.

Now he is a guy who will loose and like Carter, be forever branded a looser. Or he will win and spend 4 years becoming less popular and dragging his party down with him the whole way.

Romney is going nowhere in the polls and Ryan is being exposed like the Wizard in Oz. Most thinking people understand the governmental stall in getting things done and you can see it in approval ratings - congress 9 Obama 50. We know where the real blame is for no action and thinking people tend to look past party slogans and plastic smiles to find it.

I am not the spelling police, the typo police, or the grammar police. I am not qualified.However, I notice a few good folks say "loose" when they mean "lose".

Loose: (looss) 1.Not firmly attached: not firmly fastened or fixed in place

Lose: (looz) 1.have something taken away: to cease to possess or have something such as a job or home 2.make somebody forfeit something: to be the cause of somebody's failure to obtain, win, or maintain something

Telling! (from the article) "A number of those attending seemed only to want to get a picture of themselves with Obama speaking in the background. In 2008, audiences would be rapt, almost mesmerised, when Obama spoke. At Romney and Ryan events there is near silence and many an intent, furrowed brow as the case for change is made.

In Las Vegas, the crowd chanted ‘Yes We Can’ before Obama appeared but it sounded like a dirge rather than the perky, upbeat chant of 2008. It was so different that one local reporter even walked over to me to ask what they were chanting."

Several of you are texting me to inquire how to get the two books: Obama's Last Stand (e-book only, a quick read like an article) and The Candidate.

You can get both these books via the Professor's page

http://www.amazon.com/?&tag=althouse-20&linkCode=wsw&

Warning: You will start crying once you read these books. So, you are advised not to if you are insecure, and cannot handle the truth (such as Obama is the best and the greatest POTUS and Biden is the best and greatest VPOTUS).

Obama-Biden is about to destroy Romney-Ryan you have no idea of the damage it will do to the GOP.

If it was true that "Limbaugh hasn't been right on anything since he sent the wrong housekeep to buy pills for him." then it would be ill-advised to take any of his judgements seriously.

The syllogism depends on the validity of the premise. If Limbaugh truely has not been right on anything, then how to account for the fact that he is still alive? If he chooses the wrong side of the road to drive on or crosses a road when there is traffic, he would be killed. every day our lives depend on making correct decisions.

Lindsey's icon seems emblematic of your traditional Obama supporter. Holding your head as if you have a tension headache and smoking a cigarette. It is stressful trying to get 4 more years out of that record I agree.

I believe those political pundits who say this election could be like 1980 when all the polls had the race close right up to near the end but the voters overwhelmingly went with Reagan. I really believe Romney is going to win overwhelmingly and I don't believe I'm just cheerleading.

Furthermore, I don't believe the polls that say Obama is likeable because I believe people have been so programed to be politically correct that they refuse to say that they don't like Obama to avoid being thought racist by an anonymous pollster.And I don't believe people will dislike Romney once they are exposed to him by the Republican convention, most people haven't been paying attention. Its obvious to me and I believe it will be obvious to most people that Romney is the more likeable of the two presidential candidates.

In the last election, Obama veered between the Hope and Change! talk and negativity against Bush. The people who attended his rallies loved his Hope talk, but they also loved to trash talk Bush (and later, Palin). It was obvious his most ardent fans, claiming to want his new politics, also wanted nothing to do with people who didn't share Obama's beliefs.Even so, what Obama did believe was hard to decipher. I believe the idea was he was going to use his magic personality (and pragmatism) to just work out the problems of the country.

He can't run on that now. He can't run on Hope because he hasn't been that kind of president. He can't run on a new kind of politics, because he has been the worst kind of politician. He can't run on bringing people together (Change!) because he has shown he cannot do that. He *is* pretty much repeating the idea that if you vote for him, he will work out the problems of the country, somehow. This time not with his magic personality (that's gone), but with the mandate of "I won" once again behind him.

The overall decline since June 2009 was larger than the 2.6 percent decline that occurred" during the recession from December 2007 to June 2009. For household income, in other words, the Obama recovery has been worse than the Bush recession.

I recall not so long ago, some left-wingers made serious claims that George W Bush was to blame for hurricane Katrina "because he hates black people". He seeded the clouds, or something. Logic!You know George W Bush - a man who has been praised by Elton John and even leftwinger Matt Damon for his work with Aids in Africa.

People forget Obama's astonishing 2008 campaign, when Obama exploded out of nowhere to run as the Son of God, to cast the moneychangers out of the temple, shame the hypocrites, inspire the masses, and fulfill the prophecy of America.

We've had a few rock star presidents like JFK and Ronald Reagan, who were larger than life, but were nonetheless human. They were not routinely portrayed haloed as Obama was. They did not have celebrities crowding to pledge a new-found dedication to life, to others and to America, as we saw the week of Obama's inauguration in the "I Pledge" video.

We have never had a presidential candidate running as the leader of a messianic cult as Obama did.

I know most of those who voted for Obama in 2008 will vote for him again in 2012, but they will not be on fire with joy and possibility. It will be a hard, bitter slog against the evil and stupidity they attribute to Republicans. The promises of 2008 are now trampled banners. All they have left is fear, blame and anger, and that's all that Obama is offering.

Limbaugh the blob. I wonder too why people listen, he is antagonistic. I wonder the same thing about Moore. The difference between them, as blobs, is one is a blob dressed well and the other a blob slob. One antagonistic blob slimmed down a bit, got married, the other antagonistic blob got fatter and worse. Maybe that was SouthPark. I don't know why they're here either. They both make sense to a lot of people I suppose. They cannot be part of the Chip Ahoy happy fun club, they both set their orbits so distant to me I need an Althouse to pick up the faintest of signals and then the dah dah dit dit is just trashed.

People who bad-mouth Limbaugh the most don't listen to or have ever listened to his show, they only know what they've heard. They are basically closed-minded people who refuse to be confused with facts.

"I know: BMI is BS, but a male of5'11" that weighs 220lbs has a BMI of 30.7 and •Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater."

Not wading into the personal dimensions of other commenters here, just noting that I'm 6' and when I weighed 220 I was at 21.5% body fat, which is considered at the higher end of the healthy range. So, BMI is indeed BS.

AprilApple said... Rush had a brief addiction to Oxycontin - a pain reliever that is highly addictive. Oxycotin addiction is a common problem. No matter. Rush sought help for his addiction and kicked it

I've always been hesitant to lable people like that. Unless you've experinced chronic pain day after day for years you understand how someone could get hooked. It isn't recreational. It's how you stay functional.

Rusty - I was in such agony, one time -(one time!) I took 1/2 an oxycontin. (I hate taking anything beyond advil) I totally get where the addiction comes from.My pain was gone and it didn't make me high.

Warning: You will start crying once you read these books. So, you are advised not to if you are insecure, and cannot handle the truth (such as Obama is the best and the greatest POTUS and Biden is the best and greatest VPOTUS).

"I've always been hesitant to lable people like that. Unless you've experienced chronic pain day after day for years you understand how someone could get hooked. It isn't recreational. It's how you stay functional."

Exactly. One doesn't take Oxycontin to get high.Obama snorted coke and smoked pot - to het high.But it is Rush who is the drug addict.

Limbaugh's pain pill addiction is very understandable to anyone who has ever had chronic pain for when you are hurting you just keep taking pain pills and its very easy to take too many. No telling how many deaths especially among older people are due to overdosing on pain pills and their interactions with the other drugs older people by necessity have to take for whatever.

It's really sad, for me especially, going from a spouse into cults, to cult killings, to Oprah-backed Obama, to the Mormon take-over - actually, it's not sad, but surreal. The way everyone acts like it's O.K., or normal, and then cheers as, say, Katie Holmes escapes their clutches. Cognitive dissonance much?

Oh well. I've watched this slow slide into irrationality this long, one more time won't matter - until it does. I'll just keep remembering my wife's words as she walked out the door:

Creeley23 - " I know most of those who voted for Obama in 2008 will vote for him again in 2012, but they will not be on fire with joy and possibility."

Not "most" unless you mean by that a plurality of 2008 voters for Obama. Quite a few people voted Obama only because Hillary or Romney was not available, given the "wisdom" of primary voters.Given the other guy was a war-thirsty Neocon that proudly said he had focused on "more important things than the economy" - many people rolled the dice.

But now, even the Democrats realize they got Jimmy Carter II, and independents realize they rolled snake eyes.

"I knew a guy back in Cincinnati who had such a huge beer belly he called it his baby."

I knew a guy who had such a beer belly gut in KY that it was rumored that he was not only going to have a baby but a baby elephant and he told one and all that he believe it too for he could see its trunk.

Body fat percentage is a much better measure than BMI, but it is pretty hard to measure; at least compared to determining BMI.

BMI is BS if you are particularly muscular, but I seriously doubt this is an issue for all but a slim minority of people.

The claim that "It is muscle weight" should be categorized in much the same way as, "I can quit anytime", "She will never find out" and "I can change him" as Statements which are not always self-delusion.

Why do commenters or even the blog owner here feel the need to get personal with commenters here when they diss Limbaugh. Do any of you know him personally? He is fair game as a public persona.Chip Ahoy is right about him, Chip always makes sense, well in a strange/ sweet sort of way.

Ann, I think you're being a bit mean to Garage, he is a fellow Sconnie and Madisonian. Cut him a break. He could save you from some crazed protester one day.

Alex, I'm quite funny, so I'm told, by my conservative friends actually, especially after a few rum and diet cream sodas. Come on Alex, let down your hair a bit, your uptight switch hitting is tiresome. I bet you can be fun when you want to, but then a moment later you could turn into a snarling dog, well at least you're not boring.;)

Thing is about Rush is he has a light-hearted humor that he employs. Like the "with talent on loan from God" or "I'm doing this with half my brain tied behind my back". Or the animal & homeless updates he used to do. Then you tune in to the Air America type shows and it's one humorless Commie after another. They're oh-so-somber.

For the clueless among us who don't realize out dishonest the Obama campaign is, I suggest you check out the video via www.powerline.com of long time Democrat women posing as Republican women who going to vote for Obama in this election.

Alex, I am old and I am a grandma, so you should be respectful, shouldn't you, teeny tiny widdle biddy Alex. I'm not a bit doughy! I'm rock hard for a grandma, my ass is that of a 30 year old ask my neighbor, the conservative plumber.

"Ann, I think you're being a bit mean to Garage, he is a fellow Sconnie and Madisonian. Cut him a break. He could save you from some crazed protester one day."

I think she was pointing out his hypocrisy given his less than ideal weight. After all, hypocrisy is a big issue with liberals at least when we conservatives fall short our principles or liberal perceived conservative principles.

No, it's just wrong. Like the global warming jerk-offs, this focus on being skinny is a mental disorder, like anorexia, and a way to safely exhibit narcissism through attacking people.

I'm convinced, like cultism, most people can't spot phenomena like "mass hysteria" and they definitely don't want to consider their own role in it because - let's face it - they're cowards, not brave enough to admit they're the assholes. (It's much easier for the self-proclaimed "nice" people - again, as a crazed mob - to persecute those who use "bad" language, than think about whether the angry message those "nice" people inspire is true,...)

There are three body types - one of them gathers fat around the middle - and those people live longer because, generally, they're not as susceptible to disease as skinny fucks.

I feel sorry for people who use their dinner plates as a medicine cabinet. Most of them are only focusing on trying to look good, which is a sign of both narcissism and insecurity - and says what, exactly, about their cognitive abilities?

They're stupid, because - rather than functioning healthily without being slaves to their pathologies - they're being pushed around by them and, even worse, forcing them on others.

In fact studies show that having a spare tire is highly indicative of heart disease, hypertension and a shorter lifespan. People with less fat in the middle are more likely to have longer lifespan and higher cognitive function.

Oh, you're all a bunch of narcissists. Bragging about your BMI and gym routines and diet drinks. What is it about the mere mention of Rush Limbaugh that causes mass stupidity to bloom among the libs? (and Alex)I know...I'm a fat, old conservative, grandma, so of course my brain doesn't work.

Crack's lament about "skinny fucks" is the age-old one from a fatty who just could never lose that spare tire.

I rest my case about the deranged desire to use this bullshit as an attack vehicle.

This is going to shock you, Debbie, but some people DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK.

I've been heavy, I've been svelte, but what I haven't been is determined to have anyone look at me for anything but what I am. (My last girlfriend wrapped herself around my leg, like a horny puppy, because she saw me win political debate.) THAT'S what matters.

Moreover, smart people know they're going to die, sooner or later, from a whole host of things that fall under the category of "risks of ever having taken a breath."

I'm not trying to "live longer" because I've already outlived most of my peers - from the guys I grew up with to The Beastie Boys' (vegetarian) MCA and, now, Tony Scott - so why should I deprive myself of good food, one of life's few, true pleasures?

I work out when I feel like it, mostly swimming, but when I don't I stick to manual labor to, both, burn weight and produce something productive.

What you don't understand - and I'm starting to get that it's one amongst many - is the meaning of life,...

Crack - go on keep slammin' back to Wendy's bacon doubles. I'll keep eating my vegetable stir fry with chicken and laugh all the way to the bank.

Dinner last night was a salad and a piece of chicken - because THAT'S WHAT I WANTED.

Not because it was "healthy," not to keep my weight down, and not because anyone else determined that's what I should be eating, but because THAT'S WHAT I WANTED TO EAT. And if I want a Wendy's bacon double, then goddammit, that's what I'm going to eat.

I don't know what you think you're going to win, by doing otherwise, except a lifetime of deprivation from enjoyment.

Oh yeah - you get to "laugh all the way to the bank," whatever that means in this context. I know it makes you a cretin, so - hey - laugh it up, bozo, the joke's still not funny.

Crack - you sound overly defensive on the issue of food & health. Next thing you'll be mocking Mitt Romney for not consuming hot drinks and alcohol. Somehow he doesn't strike me as a man filled with deprivation.

There's something called Metabolic Syndrome that Crack might want to look into. Eating whatever you want is not necessarily a good idea for everyone. (Some people can do it however)Having a gut around the waist is particularly bad for a lot of people, as is type 2 diabetes which is largely caused by food consumption.

That being said, he is largely right about the BMI index. IT may not be that good a mesaurement of where you're supposed to be on the weight scale. I think, probalby a much better indicator are blood tests of things like tryglicerides rather than trying to determine an average weight that people should be at that determines they are healthy or not.

Crack Emcee wrote:I don't know what you think you're going to win, by doing otherwise, except a lifetime of deprivation from enjoyment.

Oh yeah - you get to "laugh all the way to the bank," whatever that means in this context. I know it makes you a cretin, so - hey - laugh it up, bozo, the joke's still not funny.

Maybe he means you wont get things like diabetes. It's a condition you can live with, but wouldn't it be preferable not to have to? A little bit of foresight and you might not have to waste ten years or more of your life sticking yourself with a needle.

Damn--this thread is approaching zero as a limit! It was bad late morning--the good news is, I suppose, that Allie has the tush of a 30 year old, so that means the conservative plumber's ship has come in :)

I don't see anything wrong with pointing out who is temperate and who is not. Your body is a temple. If you abuse it speaks volumes as to character. Yes that means Rush is not a good person. He's useful politically, but I do not admire him.

Alex--the body is a temple thing was one of the justifications of my southern baptist upbringings--thus smoking and alcohol were verboten. As I have gotten older I have resorted to cuban chemotherapy--rum and cigars--so far so good.

I suspect many of the commenters werent even alive when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon--I was listening to the descent while I was in Viet Nam--It was one of those moments that I will never forget.

My first memory about the space program was the Challenger blowing up in Jan 1986.

Mine as well. I clearly remember sitting in kindergarten a week or so after it happened, while my teacher somehow demonstrated what had gone wrong using a model comprised of a coke can and a long strip of paper. I'm sure it made sense at the time.